Finishing a Sweater: Hikers Waistcoat

As most knitters know, it's often times very hard to find buttons for a sweater that would match its look. Often times you find buttons that are a perfect fit immediately, and sometimes, you have to look around for a while.

So, while I was looking for wood buttons to go the Hikers Waistcoat (Ravelry Link / website link), I added the button bands for the sweater. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any grosgrain ribbon that matched the colorway, so I dyed some 3" wide white silk ribbon to a golden hue, folded it in half, and sewed white twill ribbon to add some stabilization.

Then I handsewed the whole thing for the buttonbands.

Eventually, I found an Etsy store in Europe that had some excellent handmade buttons for a very good price. Her feedback was pretty positive, so I was pretty confident in purchasing from her store.

So, I ordered Plum Wood buttons with some of the bark still on them. They were about the size of a dime. I <3 them.

Here they are spaced on the sweater.

I used some embroidery thread that matched the buttons, and sewed them on to the sweater.